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Chapter Text

"That was definitely worth seeing in theaters!" Felix crowed. "All the whoosh and the kaPOW and the zzzzzhht!"

"I'm not sure about all that." Bea shook her head fondly. "But I loved the detail in the CGI. And the music! Can't get that from TV speakers." She glanced to the side. "What did you think, Max?"

"It was great!" Max said, tossing his half-eaten bucket of popcorn. Well, half-eaten and one-quarter-spilled-when-Bea-latched-onto-his-arm-in-surprise bucket of popcorn, anyway. "But it'll take them a couple of years to do a sequel. That's the price of such awesomeness on the first go, I guess."

As the three friends broke out into the cool air of the early evening and the crowd of movie-goers around them started to disperse, Bea stopped and spun. She narrowed her eyes and looked at Max. Both boys nearly collided with her before realizing she wasn't still walking.

"What's up?" Felix asked.

She ignored Felix and kept staring. "Max, are you okay?"

"Sure. I'm good."

"No, you aren't." Bea hated that the Cap's bill was casting a shadow across his face; the light from the setting sun wasn't reaching his eyes. "You haven't been anything like yourself for a couple of months. Ever since…"

"Ever since Toyama." Max lifted his chin slightly, revealing a frown.

"Well, yeah."

"Dude, he was all, you know, busy." Felix jumped to defend his best friend. "He saved the whole world again! And, like, everybody saw it! Well, I mean, they didn't see Max exactly, but everybody knows something big went down!"

"Yes, I think that's the problem," Bea said, matching Max's glare with one of her own. "Something big went down." She crossed her arms. "And for once in your life, Max, you didn't come home and rush to tell us about it. You always tell us about your adventures. Usually glossing over the embarrassing parts. But this time – nothing. And I want to know why."

Max broke their eye-contact. "It doesn't matter."

"I think it does."

"Bea," Felix's voice went uncommonly diplomatic, "leave him alone." She looked at him in surprise and he shrugged. "You know what we all saw on the news. This was a really big, really bad deal. If he doesn't want to talk about it, you shouldn't make him. He's probably got a good reason."

"But…"

"Look." Max straightened his shoulders and raised his head, tipping the Cap back far enough that Bea could finally see his whole face; she was surprised at the calmness in it. "Thanks for being worried. I know I probably scared both of you with what happened in Hong Kong and I'm sorry about that. But this is one time I don't want you to know all the details. Okay?"

Bea was gearing up to argue, but something in Max's eyes stopped her. She'd known Max a long time, since the first day of second grade; he'd put glue on their teacher's chair and hidden under her desk and she hadn't tattled on him. She knew his moods, his jokes, his bravado. She knew when to poke him and when to let him slide out of whatever it was. She'd even seen him save the world a few times.

But Bea had never before seen the emotion that hovered in Max's eyes now. And some of it was totally understandable – it had only been a few months since Max had nearly died in a rooftop pool in Hong Kong (and almost certainly a few other times she didn't know about given everything that had happened afterwards), since an entire city had nearly been taken over by monsters. Even Max, who saved the world on a monthly basis, had obviously needed a little extra time to bounce back.

But this wasn't that. There was something in Max's eyes she'd almost never seen in him, not when snarking at a teacher or charging an alien robot empty-handed or trying to slither out of homework.

Something that didn't have easy words but she could feel down to the roots of her soul.

"Okay." She took a gulp and tried to smile. "Okay. Just…remember you can always tell us stuff if you need to. Right?"

"Any time." Felix nodded.

"Thanks, guys." A certain tension drained out of Max and he smiled for real.

Just before his phone rang.

Max answered without hesitation. "Virg? What's up?"

As he listened to whatever the Lemurian was telling him on the other end of the line, Felix and Bea watched a change come over him. Where his shoulders had been level they now rose and his chin came up high and proud. Where there had been tension in his limbs like strings wound too tight, now his arms and legs seemed loose. Relaxed. Relieved.

"Okay. I'll meet you there." He hung up and tucked the phone back in his pocket. "Sorry guys. Looks like I'm on the clock tonight. Can you take my bike home for me? Mom already knows."

"Sure," Felix said, giving a half-shrug.

"Thanks."

"Max," Bea said as he started to walk away from her. She knew him well enough to know he probably didn't want to turn around, but he was rarely rude like that to her. He paused and faced her. Whatever she had been about to say deserted her, so she sighed and said, "Be careful, okay?"

"I will. Thanks, Bea."

Bea and Felix stood together, watching their friend head out into the lot, carefully picking his way through cars at an angle towards a running path that vanished into the nearby park system. When he was finally out of sight, swallowed by the long shadows of dusk, Bea suppressed a shiver. Wordlessly and with a half-smile, Felix dropped his jacket over her shoulders. Bea shot him a grateful look and he grinned – he was as dense as they came, but he was still a good friend.

"I've said it before," Felix commented, "but I'm really, really glad he's the one with the Cap."

Bea looked at the trees which had closed on her friend. She reached with one hand to touch the place on her leg, hidden by her jeans but not unfelt, where she still bore the marks of a wound from the attack in Hong Kong. It was healing, but slowly. And she wondered what wounds hadn't been made to Max's body but might be still open, still healing, too. Those kinds of wounds seemed so much worse, and so much harder to bear.

"The world should be glad Max is the Cap-Bearer," Bea said a little sadly, "but right now I'm sure not."

Chapter Text

Virgil wiped a feathery hand against his head, though it did absolutely nothing to cool him; without sweat glands, he was forced to concentrate on his breathing to try to relieve the heat burning in the very air. Still, the gesture was a human one and Virgil had learned long ago to copy human motions in times of stress – even if they served no purpose for him, they had a purpose nonetheless.

"Chill out, Virg! It's only eighty billion degrees in here!" Max called.

Virgil kept his eyes on the boy who was all too far away, grateful that Max's tone was upbeat rather than frightened. If feigning wiping away nonexistent sweat kept the Mighty One grounded, Virgil would gladly use up precious energy on the ruse.

But he was not the only one suffering in the heat. Even from this distance, Virgil could see Max's shirt sticking to him, almost translucent from the water pouring off the boy's skin. The Cap was as resilient as ever, but it crowned a head dark with sweat, the hair plastered to Max's head and neck.

Virgil dared glance to one side. "Norman! You must hurry up!"

In return he received only a wordless growl. Norman's own sweat ran down his back and arms in rivulets and he was panting like a dog in the desert.

"Yes, I know our proximity to the caldera is uncomfortable, but time is of the essence! The Mighty One needs us!"

Norman's glare went cold and even more furious and he shoved at the stubborn fixture with all his strength.

Virgil turned back to where the Cap-Bearer was perched rather precariously high above. When the villain behind the plot to try to force the Yellowstone supervolcano into erupting had tossed them down here to die, Norman had been able to shove the Mighty One to relative safety on an outcropping before he redirected his own and Virgil's fall to a ledge far below.

The lucky outcome of the maneuver was that Mighty Max was in position to interfere with the controls for the detonators planted around the caldera and stood a good chance of preventing an explosion that could unbalance the volcano and cause untold deaths and destruction.

The unlucky outcome was that he was alone up there, with said villain closing in having realized his plan was in danger.

While Norman fought with the scaffolding that had been left here, mere yards from the bubbling lava in this underground cavern, Virgil strained to keep an eye on their boy. For the moment, Max was using his speed and his agility to keep out of range of their opponent, but he could not dodge forever.

And if Virgil was any judge – and he knew himself to be – he could guess the Cap-Bearer was only moments away from forgoing his own safety entirely to take a risk in order to thwart the evil plan and save the world.

Which was all well and good, in general, and Virgil applauded his boy's focus on heroism.

But no longer so heartily at the risk to his life.

After Toyama, Virgil had found that, as much as he intended to see the world's safety preserved, to defeat Skullmaster and all evils like him that would threaten the lives of the innocent, he was not willing to accept that victory at the cost of Mighty Max. On a practical level, he told himself that for as long as the Cap-Bearer lived, any evil might yet be vanquished.

But truly, if he was honest with himself, he just couldn't bear to lose the boy, now or ever.

"Hey, this looks important!"

Virgil saw the flash of a pale arm and something went flying off the outcropping to tumble into the lava waiting below.

"Get away from there! How dare you?"

"I'm the Mighty One! It's in my job description to dare!"

There was a sound that was too much like a grunt of pain, as though the Mighty One had been struck or tripped. Virgil's heart froze in his chest and no amount of volcanic heat could have thawed it.

"Norman!" Virgil yelled. "Mighty Max needs us now!"

Norman gave a roar of pure fury, his rage rising hotter than the volcano beneath their feet. With a strength born of desperation, he yanked the scaffolding clear of the stone and tipped it like a giant ladder up to where his boy fought alone. If Virgil hadn't been scrambling to him, Norman might well have left him to manage alone.

And if Virgil would have slowed him, he would have let Norman pitch him into the lava rather than leave their boy at risk for one more moment.

Norman raced up the haphazard pipes and planks with the speed of a charging tiger. But even before they reached the top, Virgil heard a familiar cry – one common to villains all over the world when faced with defeat.

"No! Not that!"

"Yep! That!"

There was a great groaning of metal and a few low concussive blasts and Virgil could see electricity arcing up around the platform that was the evil-doer's center of operations. Then came a flash of a grin and a Cap and Max was bolting away from the mess he had left behind.

Norman reached the ledge just as the heat shields erected around the equipment upon which the villain's plot depended collapsed and the equipment began failing with flashing lights and wailing sirens before falling quickly silent and still.

"Heat," Max gasped, rubbing at his face with a soot-covered arm. "It's a killer."

Virgil examined the scene and did some quick mental math. "I believe the connections to the various explosives have melted. Without a coordinated blast, even setting them off individually should not be enough to disrupt the volcano."

"Good. Then we just gotta keep Sparky from setting this all up again." Max skidded to join them.

Virgil might once have let the Mighty One settle into position with himself and Norman without a blink, but now he made sure to wrap one feathered hand around Max's arm just to reassure them both that he was well. That he was not hurt.

That he had not failed the Chosen One this time. That he had not failed Max this time.

The villain, shouting incoherently with rage, charged them with what appeared to be a piece of a chair in his hands.

Norman and Max exchanged fierce, knowing grins. "Normie? Would you do the honors?"

"It would be my pleasure, Mighty One."

In the end, Norman dragged the volcano-obsessed madman all the way back to the surface, where they handed him over to the authorities along with a map Max had swiped of every location he had planted his bombs. Norman had his hands full with the ranting and furious villain, and the Cap-Bearer had kept him almost completely distracted with a running banter of insults that likely prevented him from taking advantage of any opening Norman might have provided.

And all the way, Virgil watched his boy. The volcano, Yellowstone, none of it mattered. His boy was alight and confident and unharmed. Even alone, even without them, he had been victorious.

But Virgil couldn't help but shiver with cold at what might have been.

Chapter Text

She was, in general, a patient woman. If being an archeologist hadn't honed that talent to the precision of an Edo samurai's blade, having a rambunctious, world-saving son certainly had.

But that was the trouble.

Because sometimes when her son saved the world, he lost himself.

She never wanted to see him broken as he had been after Toyama again. She never wanted to hear him crying out in his sleep and realize she was powerless to do anything but wake him and offer him comfort – comfort he never fully accepted. Inviting Norman and Virgil to live with them had been less an affirmation and more an act of desperation.

She could not share his trials and his pains, but she could at least ensure that those who did were close at hand to help him deal with them.

She had also, unbeknownst to her son, put in several long phone calls to Doctor Peter Venkman, needing her own counselling in the face of Max's suffering. Doctor Venkman had been sympathetic and insightful, but in the end, he had left her with one inevitable truth:

He's always going to do what he has to do. You can't stop him and you can't protect him from that. What you can do is give him whatever he needs when he comes home and never hold it against him when he goes out to break your heart again. Because he has to go. But if he has to carry guilt for your feelings as well as his own, one day they will be too heavy for him.

So she taught herself to be supportive and understanding rather than giving into fantasies of stealing the Cap and throwing it down the nearest well. She patched up his scrapes and she muttered about stains and she badgered him to clean his room and to keep Norman from leaving the refrigerator door open.

She tried to be his port in the storm, his fixed point of normalcy. His example of taking the world in stride and letting it leave no mark.

But when she was alone with her son off saving the world from who-knew-what, those marks showed.

The first time he had gone out with Virgil and Norman after Toyama, she had compulsively cleaned the attic. The second time, she tore every book off every bookshelf in the house and recatalogued them. The third, she dumped the kitchen's stores and cooked everything she vaguely knew how to make.

This time, she was oiling and dusting every artifact and relic in the house.

She had made it all the way upstairs to the Maasai mask in the hall before she heard the door downstairs open.

"Mom! We're home!"

The scent of sulphur hit her before she even reached the stairs. She stared at her boy for a moment before descending, adopting her slightly-brusque, practical mannerisms at once.

"Max! We've talked about this! Shoes stay on the porch if they're that dirty – and what on earth is all over your clothes?"

"My shoes aren't dirty," he said, shaking his head and dislodging some black soot. "They're burned. And a little melted."

"The smell tells me that, thank you very much," she returned. Then she peered to Virgil and Norman. "And you two are even worse."

"We heartily apologize," Virgil said, but his eyes were communicating something else entirely – that Max was safe and unhurt and had not been troubled by the events of the night. It was a language she didn't know how exactly he had learned, but Virgil spoke the silent tongue of worried and loving parents as fluently as he did everything else. Somehow, she didn't think it had started with her Max, but there was no denying that her son had acquired for himself an additional parent in the ancient Lemurian.

(But not Norman. Whatever else Norman was, and he was too many things to explain sometimes, he was no parent to Max. She often wished he were. Not that it would have made Max any safer, but because there was no denying that she felt a little better with more people willing to tell him 'no' than to follow him loyally into danger.)

(Even if, in the end, there was no way to stop him from going there anyway.)

(Without her. And that would never not tear her soul into strips of pain and fear.)

(But never where he could see.)

Virgil's message was clear tonight – Max was all right. She might have collapsed in relief, but she had to be what Max needed. Her feelings could wait.

"To the backyard, both of you. I don't want to see either one of you in the house until you've hosed off the worst of it." She peered at Norman. "Make that all of it."

Virgil squawked. "Dear lady, I do not hose off."

"You do tonight," she said firmly. She turned her back on them. "Max, give me that shirt before you take one more step. Actually, give me all of it. It's straight into the bath for you and the garbage for the rest of this."

"Aw!" Max wrinkled his nose. "But those jeans were new!"

"And in one night they've lived the hardships of a thousand normal children's days," she returned. "Off. All of it. Bath."

Max sighed and a cloud of ash rose from him. "Sorry, guys. Better do what she says or we'll be scrubbing the house for a week."

"You bet you will."

Norman just nodded and scooped up Virgil, who was still protesting, and headed back out the door to the garden.

Max looked back at his mom. "You didn't worry too much, did you?"

If only you knew, my love, she thought. But instead she made herself smile. "I'm more worried about my carpets now than I was about you with those two out stopping bad guys."

"Good," he said, and he gave her a real smile, the warm one of trust and his own relief. "We had it all under control. Except for the volcano. Nobody has a volcano under control."

"I am certain you could manage if you had to," she told him. Then, to keep him from seeing the building emotion in her eyes, she reached down and yanked his shirt up over his head.

"Gah! Hey!" He squirmed, but he knew mothers insisting on cleanliness cannot be denied by even the most determined child. "I didn't ask for help!"

"You didn't have to," she said. "You're my son and you're filthy. It's my obligation as a mother to help. Bears lick their cubs, birds preen their chicks, and I do this."

"I'd rather have the bear," he grumbled as his head popped out from the shirt.

"Get any more dirt on my floors and you will," she told him. "Now, up to the tub and put the rest of your clothes right in the garbage up there. No arguments."

Max sighed dramatically but obeyed, tiptoeing up the stairs and trying unsuccessfully not to shed soot with every step.

When he was out of sight, she looked at the pool of ash around where he had stood and the small trail that followed him. She traced it with her eyes until it disappeared around the corner. But she could hear the bath water running and Max singing something to himself as he did when he was content and at ease.

She drew the blackened shirt to her chest and buried her face in it.

As her son splashed and sang and now the faint sounds of Virgil bellowing about the cold water of the hose wafted from side of the house, she let a few tears fall where none could see into the ash and soot of her son's shirt.

He was all right. He was not hurt and he was not scarred.

But she knew it was only a matter of time until Toyama happened again, perhaps in a different way, but the pain would be the same.

Then, with the power of the same steel-cored soul her son had inherited, she drew herself up and took a deep breath. Today all was well. She would continue until another day ended differently.

By the time Max emerged from the tub, she was so busy scrubbing the carpet he didn't think anything of the slight trace of soot on her face.

Chapter Text

Norman's eyes were closed as he reclined on the flat slab of rock that was his bed. The limestone he had used in Mongolia had been worn smooth, but this chunk of sandstone Max's mother had procured for him still had pleasantly rough and uneven bits. Norman had already decided that when it got too soft for his liking he would take a hammer to it just to keep it jagged the way he preferred.

Norman also preferred the open sky, rain or snow notwithstanding, but that was an argument he had not won; Max's mother had insisted on him at least constructing a lean-to with the sides covered. It was better than the plastic shed she had almost purchased for him, making some comment about at least that would look normal in the garden. Though, in the end, neither Norman nor Max's mother cared about what neighbors thought of the hand-hewn structure and the mountainous man who lived in it.

What they did care about was the boy asleep up in his room.

Or nearly asleep. Norman's instincts told him it would be a few more minutes before the Mighty One finally dropped into proper slumber. He did not have to be close enough to see or hear the Cap-Bearer to know his rhythms as well as Norman knew Virgil's. He knew when the boy had gone upstairs and the look in his eyes as he'd said goodnight. That was enough.

Norman decided to give it ten more minutes before he moved.

It was a habit he had picked up in the immediate aftermath of Toyama – watching over the Mighty One in his sleep as often as possible. At first, in the weeks following those events, Norman had stood outside the boy's room until he was asleep and then had kept watch inside the room itself, inches from the bed, never resting himself for fear the boy would wake alone from the terrors that filled his mind. During the days with Doctor Venkman, Norman had sat with the boy whenever he slept – and would have whether Peter gave permission or not.

Since then, he had scaled back his vigils to every other night rather than every night. Norman guessed that Max was still aware of his presence, but the Cap-Bearer had not forbidden him and that was as good as permission.

Though, if the Mighty One had ordered him to desist, Norman would have refused – perhaps the first order he might have ever dared countermand from his charge.

Norman would follow – and had followed – the Cap-Bearer into hell. He would obey any request without question, would accept any command in battle no matter how strange. He was the blade and shield of the Mighty One and he would never defy him, never betray him, never abandon him.

But then, that was why he might refuse to refrain from watching over the boy in his sleep. For the one order Mighty Max could not give and expect him to follow was to abandon him in the face of peril or harm.

Norman had been too far away from the Cap-Bearer through too much heartache; he would never let it happen again.

Even if the Mighty One ordered him to desert him, ordered him to stand down, he would not. He would stay by his boy's side and defend him to the last.

If Norman could have his way, he would not move from Mighty Max's side day or night for the rest of their lives. But that, Virgil had told him repeatedly, was not healthy.

Norman snorted. What was not healthy was Mighty Max at risk.

But he did understand Virgil's concerns, and he also wished his boy not to let up his own vigilance and find himself vulnerable because he assumed the protection of his Guardian. Norman also understood that his 'hovering,' as Max's mother called it, could be stifling for the boy who had fought so long for his normal life and his freedom from the responsibilities of the Cap-Bearer.

However, Toyama had changed them all, and in the Mighty One it had changed his perspective. He no longer tried to hold onto his childhood; rather, he now forged ahead into the world of a Hero.

But even Heroes of the highest caliber need their Guardians.

Norman rose from his bed and moved on silent feet for the house.

It was the work of a moment for him to slip inside, locking the door behind himself; Virgil left it unlocked any night Norman was to come in to resume his protection – and even when Norman broke his every-other-night pattern, Virgil always anticipated him. The Lemurian also left out a large glass of water for Norman to drink all in one gulp on his way through the kitchen to the upstairs. It was a kindness, an acknowledgement, and a sign of gratitude all in one, and Norman made sure to accept it and drink it all to show Virgil that he understood.

Norman was not alone in wanting to watch over their boy day and night, but only he could do so mostly undetected, and so Virgil left it to him.

Norman ascended the stairs and eased open the thin bedroom door that guarded such a precious burden inside. Norman already knew every floorboard in the house and how to move across them without a sound, and the carpet barely hissed under his weight as he eased himself into position beside the foot of the bed. From here he could see the door and the window.

And the Mighty One.

The faint scent of sulfur remained in the air from the battle the day before at the volcano. Norman peered at the Cap-Bearer's face closely, but saw no sign of nightmares spurred by the incident.

But that was one of so many similar outings with similar fuel for fear and doubt, and Norman would not let any one of them take hold. Not over his boy, not within his pure heart and soul.

And yet, it was the one battle Norman could not be certain he would win. In a fight, against any danger, he knew he would break his body to pieces to protect his boy. But the one contest he could not win was the one within his boy's mind.

So he stood there, night after night. If the terrors came, he would battle them when they woke the boy. If anything else came, it would meet his sword before it got within range of the Mighty One.

Norman wished he could reach inside the boy's dreams to defend him there, but he could only content himself with knowing that Mighty Max was the greatest Hero ever to live. If Norman could not be there himself, he trusted that his boy would still succeed.

And either way, his Guardian stood ready to protect him, now and forever.

Chapter Text

"DIE, CAP-BEARER!"

His rage echoed through the underworld and the very foundations of Skull Mountain shook. Skullmaster's anger had scarcely known such heights in his thousands of years of life.

"I know it was you! I know you are the one who stole my Crystal of Souls! Face me!"

Even as he bellowed, though, he recognized that it was futile. It had been weeks, as measured on the surface world, since the Crystal of Souls had vanished, long enough that the accursed Mighty One could not possibly still be trapped at the center of the Earth and have avoided revealing himself. Skullmaster didn't know how Max could have arrived and escaped without detection, but he had no doubt that his hated enemy was behind the theft.

"Curse you, Lava Lord, for distracting me at such a critical time!"

For the Crystal had gone missing only moments before Skullmaster had discovered that his worm of a servant, Warmonger, had betrayed him and had resurrected Lava Lord. The ensuing battle between Skullmaster and the original inhabitant of Skull Mountain had cost the lives of countless lavabeasts and other creatures that lived here, and had solved nothing.

Lava Lord retained control of everything beyond the river of lava and the lavabeasts as well. To say nothing of the machine Magus, which had not been enough to overpower Skullmaster in their fight, but had survived enough to be repaired. In time, Skullmaster expected to see it again, and twice as dangerous.

Time Skullmaster had no option but to give Lava Lord as he readied his own forces for another attack.

The war for Skull Mountain had been handily won when Skullmaster was first forced here, but then he had carried the Crystal of Souls. Now, though still powerful, he was not so dominant. And this was Lava Lord's own territory. The very rocks answered to him as they never would the invading outsider.

And it could only be the fault of the Chosen One.

"Only the Mighty One has the power to defeat me. Only he could have brought me so low as to waste my time subduing Lava Lord when I should be plotting my revenge!"

Skullmaster growled and clenched his bony hands into fists that would have snapped the boy's fragile neck.

"And such revenge will not come easily with the loss of my precious Crystal. Curse him a thousand times!"

Skullmaster's situation was dire and he knew there were few outcomes that ended favorably for him now. If he defeated Lava Lord and was able to reclaim the underworld, he would still waste both time and resources, while above on the surface the Mighty One could be growing ever stronger. If he failed to defeat Lava Lord, he would be easy prey skulking in a corner when the Chosen One came to destroy him.

There was a third option, but even Skullmaster recoiled from it.

"I have always said I wished to lay his broken body at the feet of my Master. If I cannot achieve victory, it will be my body broken before my Master."

And that was something Skullmaster dared not risk. His feud with the Chosen One was amusing to his Master, a diversion, and for as long as it continued as such, Skullmaster was well enough in favor as not to warrant punishment. But should he fail, or should he cease to please his Master, all the torment he planned for the Mighty One would pale in comparison to the suffering to which he would be subjected.

Skullmaster must find a way to escape or to gain power – whatever avenue he could take to again chase after the boy who was the center of his failure as well as his rage.

"If he has destroyed the Crystal, it will take years to reforge a new one without the fragments. But those are easily located and reassembled unless my old friend has been particularly clever for once. However, as predictable as he is, Virgil can be uniquely troublesome."

His face contorted in a snarl.

"Though not nearly as troublesome as that boy who heralds my destruction!"

And while Skullmaster languished at Skull Mountain battling Lava Lord and his endless lavabeasts for control, the Chosen One could well be acquiring powers that would easily lift him above the strength that remained to Skullmaster himself.

"He could have mastered the Arcana. He could be wielding the Crystal of Souls himself, though to do so would rather trample the purity of his supposed heroism. He could have uncovered any number of lost magical artifacts or acquired more modern weapons like the Magus."

Of course, the worst part of it was that Skullmaster had no way of knowing any of it. Without the Crystal of Souls, he was blind to the outside world.

"He will come to kill me and I will have nothing with which to destroy him! I cannot allow it!"

His own pride and rage aside, Skullmaster did not dare the wrath of his Master, and his Master's wrath would be great indeed if he could not destroy the Mighty One before the Mighty One turned his eyes to the Master himself.

"Though I can be at least certain that the so-called Mighty One will never defeat my Master. But I want the pleasure of his blood and his pain for myself. I will not allow it to be taken from me!"

And from within his twisted, evil soul, Skullmaster struck upon the darkest inspiration of all his planning since before his first banishment to the center of the Earth. As the glee of the future washed over him, he began to laugh – a low chuckle at first, growing to a crazed hysteria that again set the foundations of Skull Mountain to shake.

"Oh, what irony! What a perfectly hideous paradox!"

For the first time since the destruction of his Crystal, Skullmaster found himself grinning.

"The Mighty One will die, and with him the hope of his world for all time! And it will all be his fault!"

Chapter Text

"How do things get so bad so fast?" Max wanted to know.

Virgil raised a feathery eyebrow. "Are you certain you want me to diagram a practical response to that inquiry?"

"No. Not really."

Beside them, Norman grunted. "At least we won't lose track of it."

Max turned his glare on his Guardian. "Thanks, Normie."

"Any time, Mighty One."

This time, they had not had to venture to a remote or not-so-remote part of the planet to avert the world-ending disaster; the problem had risen off the beach of Max's own hometown. It was a giant construction, big enough to put Fuath and Magnus to shame, apparently some kind of psychically-controlled golem constructed by "the first ancient peoples after Lemuria" according to Virgil.

"Well, they had lousy taste," Max had told him.

He stood by that assessment. The colossal, humanoid-shaped automaton was the exact color of rust when it has hits maximum exposure and starts to smell – and it lived up to that color with a scent that was almost visible in the air it was so potent. The thing didn't have so much a face as a gaping hole and a pair of glowing lights above it. It's fingerless hands were blunt mallets on the ends of the two arms with an extra elbow each, and it swung them like wrecking-balls into just about everything that wasn't immediately underfoot. Its feet were wide and conical in shape and left deep footprints wherever it moved.

But for all its intimidating form and size, the golem – or, rather, the person controlling it – had made two fatal mistakes.

First, it had not scooped up the Mighty One when it had the chance before Norman snatched the boy from it and carried him out of range.

Second, it had scooped up Max's mom, Bea, and Felix.

Max closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and focusing on the monstrous creation before him. In its belly, approximately, there was an open section with swirling holes that looked like a mandala carved into its midsection.

And through the holes, Max could make out his friends, his mom, and a few other unfortunate beach-goers who had been caught up in its initial landfall.

"You know what?" he asked.

"Yes, Mighty One?" Virgil looked at him.

Max broke into a feral, confident smile. "This thing's going down."

Beside him, Norman grinned with answering ferocity. "Now that's what I like to hear!"

Even Virgil's beak turned up in amusement. "As do I. Now, what is the plan?"

Max's smile deepened.

Meanwhile, too far away to hear, Max's mom, Bea, and Felix leaned against the bars of their prison staring down at their town on the edge of disaster.

"You'd think more people would run with a giant metal monster coming for them," Felix said, shrugging slightly.

"Makes you wonder how we ever evolved out of the trees if we didn't have the sense to run from a lion," Max's mom agreed, nodding. "Oh, for – look out down there!"

There was a squeal of brakes and the car that had been absurdly heading along the beach road in their direction stopped just short of the giant's feet. The red-faced, clearly oblivious driver barely dove clear before his car was squashed to pieces.

Bea let out an aggrieved sigh. "Well, there go his insurance rates."

Max's mother groaned. "And everybody else's. At this rate, you kids aren't going to be able to get car insurance any time soon."

"Who needs a car anyway when you've got Max's Cap?" Felix asked. "Plus, skateboarding is way more fun."

Bea looked at him, fighting a smile. "You're going to be the only fifty-year-old commuting to work on a skateboard, you know."

"I bet you a million bucks I won't."

"You don't even have ten bucks."

"Maybe when I'm fifty I'll have them!"

Max's mom cleared her throat. "Anyway. Is there something we should be doing other than waiting up here to be rescued like a set of damsels in distress?"

Bea took in the scene below and shook her head. "Nope."

"But couldn't we be helping Max?"

Bea pointed out and down. "The best help we can give Max right now…"

Felix caught what she saw and grinned, finishing her thought. "...Is staying totally out of his way!"

Below, Virgil was not so certain of the course of action his charge had chosen. "Mighty One, you have had better plans than this one. Plans that didn't work, might I remind you?"

"Yeah, but this one will."

"How can you be so confident?"

Max spared a moment to meet Virgil's eyes. Even after all this time and so much together, Virgil was still caught and held by the power of the Mighty One, the sheer force that shone in his eyes and said all would be well because he simply would not be defeated. Not now and not ever.

"I'm the Mighty One! And I say so!"

Norman grinned again. "Works for me!"

Max turned forward again, all his focus on his target.

"Besides," he said, preparing for the jump, "it's not like anybody's going to see this one coming."

Virgil sighed. "That, at least, is entirely true."

Max raised a hand. "On my signal."

Norman braced himself. "Ready, Mighty One."

Virgil tightened his own grip, not that it meant much against the Guardian's strength.

"Now!"

From above, Max's mother and friends watched as the familiar Cap-wearing shape, bound up in Norman's strong arms beside Virgil, leaped off a nearby building onto an enormous trampoline dragged out by the fire department before they realized they couldn't get to the people inside the golem. The cannon-ball of heroes shot forward at speed.

The impact on the colossus was so great the people within its abdomen felt the metal around them shake and ring. Then came the sound of clambering boots and a shouting Viking striking at the metal with his sword.

However, the prisoners could see that only two of the three had landed on the golem; Max had been let go by Norman mid-flight and had instead landed far below after catching himself on a flagpole to gain control of his momentum. While Norman crawled over the giant and started punching holes in its weak points as identified by Virgil who clung to his back, Max scrambled to the real source of trouble: the person controlling the golem in the first place.

Max had not been formally educated in any sort of hand-to-hand combat, but he had spent the last months training with Norman – and not just in how to duck, dodge, and stay out of the way.

Still, he needed little of Norman's training to get the upper hand on the woman wearing the strange crown that gave her command over the colossus. All he needed was her distraction while she yelled at the giant and tried to help it shake Norman off its head from her perch on top of a surfboard shop.

Sneaking up behind her and stealing the crown was downright anticlimactic, but it certainly did the job.

The woman shouted in rage and spun, but Max was already running away, crown tucked under one arm. He hit the edge of the low rooftop and dropped from it, falling and rolling with practiced ease. He sprinted ahead until he stood just between the golem's feet where it had frozen when its master lost control.

Max held up the crown. "You let everybody go right now! Nicely!"

The giant dropped to one knee and the swirly bars of its enclosure melted away. Norman slid down the thing's chest and helped hand people down to the sand. He placed the last prisoner safely on the ground before moving to block the woman who had finally caught up to Max and was running for him with fury in her eyes.

Max never even turned around – he knew he was safe with his Guardian and had absolutely no doubt that she would never reach him. Instead, he looked up at the golem.

"Hate to do this, buddy, but you're too dangerous to keep." He eyed Virgil. "How long would it take this thing to get to my favorite spot out in the deep blue sea?"

"Many hours of it running, Mighty One. It is over five thousand miles from here."

Max sighed. "I don't have that kind of time. And I definitely don't wanna have to babysit it after we get it there."

"If I may suggest an alternative?"

"Suggest away, Virg."

"There is a portal exactly fifty yards to your left that will lead to a deep crevasse between glaciers high in the Prince Charles Mountains of Antarctica. Even with climate change upon us, those glaciers should remain for some time, and I believe such temperatures should be sufficient to freeze this creation to harmlessness."

Max flipped him a smile. "Perfect!" He started moving left until the Cap came to life and the portal burst into existence.

"Okay, big, ugly, and inconvenient! Time for a really long nap!"

It had been a while since Max had tried this – and then he had been in another dimension and with another Chosen One to help him. But he had learned so much since then, and had found ever greater strength within himself.

Max raised a hand and willed the portal to grow.

While the colossus rose and took four small steps sideways, the portal expanded in the air until it was fully half the giant's height in diameter.

Max was sweating and shaking but he managed to hold onto his focus. "I think that's as good as it gets, dude. So get going!"

The golem ducked into the portal and let itself be carried away.

The very instant the portal snapped closed, Max dropped his hand and considered the stone crown that could undo all his hard work.

"Normie?" He looked up to see his Guardian approaching, the woman behind the attack tied up with some beach towels and being guarded by everyone from inside the giant stomach while the police swarmed them. "Would you mind?"

"Not at all, Mighty One." Norman took the crown from his boy's hands and easily snapped it in half.

"And what are you going to do with that, Mighty One?" Virgil asked, stepping close and putting a hand on Max's arm to steady him as well as to assuage his own concerns. But Max, though depleted and a little shaky, managed a familiar grin.

"Oh, I was thinking we break it up a few times and use whichever portals we didn't pick for the Crystal fragments to spread it around."

Virgil smiled too. "An excellent suggestion. And a job well done, Mighty One."

Max looked up at his mom and Bea and Felix finally getting away from the crowd and starting to head their way. He could read the pride in their faces, their pride on his behalf that never really left them no matter how much they tried to pretend it wasn't there. A similar pride to that exuded by Norman and Virgil, though theirs was keener still even though they, too, tried not to make it obvious to him.

But Max knew. How could he not know?

Even giant, should-have-been-long-dead golems couldn't break their trust in him. And couldn't break his trust in himself, come to that.

He knew they worried about him – his mom, his friends, and Virgil and Norman – and he worried, too, sometimes.

But days like this? Days where the evil was easy and the damage was minimal? Days where the worst harm to the world was a new cove cut by huge feet in the shoreline? Days when his destiny put him right where he needed to be to do his best work?

These were the days Mighty Max knew that, in the end, there was nothing to worry about.

Unless you were Skullmaster. Max felt certain he had plenty to worry about.

And that was exactly how it should be.